The Boundary Riders
The Tales and Times of
Bluey
and Bluey Too..
Crumbling
Yet Eloquent Relics of the
Australian Outback..
Ever Tracking Wide
Open Plain Inexactitudes
From Lightning
Ridge to Lake Nyanga...
******************************
.
. . a
thumbnail dipped in sheep dip description of
The
Two Blueys . . Boundary Riders
One is as short as the other is tall...One is as big as the other is
small
One has a beard big enough to conceal a brace of wombats . . . the
other
looks like a mini Norman Gunston .
One has a voice like a castrato billy-goat on speed, the other sounds
like a flatulent bull elephant.
Theirs was a pre-ordained mate-ship.A raft of life’s amazing
life’s co-incidences shows that Huey meant for the Two Blueys
to
be mates.
Both born on a weekday ! Both nicknamed Bluey !!
Both amazed their primary school teacher by stating their job
preference as Boundary rider. [this was another amazing co-incidence as
they
were sitting next to each other at the time and couldn’t read
nor
write]
Both had hammer toes and very large ears shaped like crowbars.
They lived next door to each other from the day they were born.
Both their fathers, unable to bear the responsibility of fatherhood ran
away from home the day the two boys were born.
Both mothers, diagnosed and treated for deep depression ran away from
home when the two Blueys had their seventh birthdays.
From that day on they were both brought up by a big red rogue kangaroo,
who in reality was a reformed brain-damaged dogger trying to make up
for all the killing he’d enjoyed.
[This disguised demented 'roo-dog surrogate Dad got caught in one of
his own
traps and the two Blueys, at the tender age of 13 years had to put him
down. A most unsettling experience that would have destroyed the Two
Blueys but for their deep regard for each other.
They left school and became jacks of all trades..here’s part
of
one of their tales..
The
Two Blueys, Doctor Hook and a
Crocodile . . an excerpt
The Boundary Riders were
considered a fearless pair of coves. There was only one of
God’s
creatures gave them the dinkum jimmy brits, and that was Mr
Big
Bastard Salty Horribilus, the salt-water croc, and with good reason.
The encounter that
spawned this rage
of terror took
place in the North West of Western Australia. The Two Blueys
were
working as garbos on Koolan Island, and the tip, the most spectacular
tip in the whole wide world was haunted by the
biggest
salt-water
croc that anyone who saw it, had ever seen. This made them a bit
nervous. With some justification.
In their
younger days the Two
Blueys had spent four
years croc hunting..ten between the two of them 'cos they worked a lot
of
nights, catching crocs alive, for farms or zoos and the bigger
the
better !
But one fine day,
in a Billabong north
of Darwin, a twelve metre salty had
reared up, siezed Bluey Too’s head and shoulders in
it’s five metre jaws and commenced to drag him into the
water.
Bluey dived in after them, armed only with a hand axe, the
first thing at hand and threw himself on the back of the
crocodile’s head, wrapped two legs and a hand round its body,
and
then commenced to knock out that croc’s teeth . . .one by
bloody
one ! Not the ones gripping Bluey, he didn’t want to hurt
him,
just all the others, and as he battered away he sang the chorus to
‘Click go the Shears’ in time to the
celery-crunching
percussive noises he was creating. It must have an awe-inspiring sight
and sound alright.
Now crocs
are pretty intelligent
in the low cunning states but often
react to out and out retalitory violence from humans with great
surprise...being kicked by a reluctant water buffalo was nothing to
this massive reptile, but to have prey chasing you and
demolishing your choppers. . .then add to this the fact that Bluey
Too was biting chunks out of the crocodile’s tongue
(and you
know how much that hurts) and this veteran of meting out
death
found that meeting and attempting the eating of one
of the Two Blueys was one of the major mistakes in his life so
far. Throwing the instincts of a hundred billion years aside
the
massive salty regurgitated the half of Bluey Two he had taken
possession of, and with a powerful stroke of his tail headed
mid-billabong-wards. Bluey slid off, but not before leaving the axe
buried in the croc’s armoured head. Not doing any real
damage,
just stuck well in.
The Two
Blueys spent the rest of
the afternoon
baiting the croc, standing in the shallows, casting aspersions on the
croc’s parentage, even mooning it as they
demolished
a flagon of Bundy of rum, but that croc just stayed out there in the
middle, all arvo and late into the night.
Bluey Too
at two a.m.,
sitting on a log, dangling his toes in the water crooning fifties love
songs by Ricky Nelson and air-guitaring Duane Eddy would catch its eyes
lambent with hatred but never moving, in the torchlight. He fell asleep
on the log, as we all do, woke up dawnwards with both legs still with
him and no sign of the croc. Come real daylight they tracked it to the
sea. It had covered the ten kilometers at a flat run and was seemingly
gone for good.
They gave up the game shortly
after that.
Every time
they went out hunting, all crocs just disappeared from view. It was
hopeless. Years later they were visiting the Perth Zoo and a
recently acquired young wild croc just about went up the wall trying to
get out of their sightline. The Two Blueys reckoned they were now part
of croc folklore..a genetically handed down warning if you know what I
mean.
To get back to the real story.
At first they
only saw vague glimpses of
the Koolan Croc, and it was big. Bigger than Lake Placid. No-one else
had ever seen it excepting for Old Blind Willie Bluke an Aquavit sodden
Latvian cook with a penchant for tip foraging . Blind Willie swore that
he had once caught it chewing ruminatively on a dumped blood red
Volkswagen beetle, once owned by the most insane haulpak
driver
of them all, Kaiser Vilhem Schmidtt, a name bestowed upon him on his
birth day by his dad, one Mr Schmidt, a retired prussian with
absolutely no sense of humour. Kaiser Vill
also possessed. . . .
. . . . .this tale goes on and
on..suffice to say it
will
soon be found in book and CD form
the "back paddock"
BACK
©2005, Terror
Australis Entertainments